Kings of Anarchy

by Caroline Peckham

  I opened my eyes just as Saint tossed his scrubbing brush into the bucket of bleach he'd been using to go over our work on the walls that had been graffitied last night. I probably should have been offended by that, but if I was being totally honest, I'd lost interest in scrubbing the walls after an hour and I'd left more than a few spots of red paint behind.

  "Well I certainly don't think you should be feeling any guilt. I just find it interesting that sleep evades me and yet it isn't guilt that keeps me up either. It's habit." Saint shrugged and stalked away from me, carrying his bucket of bleach water and dumping it in the sink.

  I cast a glance at the gleaming walls and realised he'd given the entire place a go over too. Every inch of the floors, kitchen and even the soft furnishings gleamed and the scent of a mixture of cleaning products perfumed the air. I guessed that was to do with someone else having been in his sanctuary and his need to eradicate all evidence of the fact. No doubt he'd be instructing his maid, Rebecca, to go over it all again later too. That woman had to be a real life saint to be able to keep up with his level of crazy all the time and still have her job. Although he’d once told me that he paid her like five times the going rate for a cleaner and offered up bonuses for extra jobs so I guessed it was worth it for her to deal with a dose of crazy on the side.

  I shoved myself off of the couch and headed back to my room as Saint began cleaning the cleaning bucket. And if that wasn’t the perfect example of a waste of a fucking life then I didn’t know what was, but far be it from me to interrupt his insanity. His brow was furrowed and I could tell something was bothering him, so despite the fact that it was only five thirty in the morning and I never got up at this unholy hour, I decided to head back out and talk to him once I'd taken a piss and cleaned my teeth.

  I hooked one of my sketchbooks out from beneath my mattress and grabbed a couple of pencils from my desk before I left my room again, carrying them back to the couch with me.

  Saint was standing over the dining table, looking down at his usual spot on it and running his fingers along the grain of the wood thoughtfully.

  "If you’re wondering whether or not I've fucked our girl on your spot, the answer is no," I taunted as I took my seat. "But now that you've given me the idea, eating her at the table actually makes a lot of sense."

  Instead of biting at me, Saint just frowned a little deeper before heading back over to the kitchenette.

  He'd clearly been up all night playing piano like some creepy ghost and the exhaustion was weighing on him, but I knew he wouldn't sleep now until his usual time tonight. Maybe being dog tired would work in his favour and let him actually sleep for once anyway.

  I flipped open my sketchbook and started drawing while I waited for him to come to me. Dealing with Saint was always a bit like dealing with a feral cat. If you went strolling up to it with kind words and a bowl of fresh fish thinking you were gonna be best buddies, then you were fresh out of luck. Likely it'd just hiss at you, run off and maybe even try to bite you if you persisted. But if you sat quietly and just happened to leave a little fishy morsel down as an invitation beside you, then eventually the kitty would come and nab it.

  "This constant rule breaking is going to have to stop," he ground out as he placed two cups of coffee down on the coffee table and dropped into his throne beside me. Good kitty.

  "Is that so?" I asked in a voice that let him know I had zero plans to keep my dick out of our girl and he was going to have to get used to it.

  He pursed his lips, his fist clenching against the arm of the chair and then releasing again slowly before he let the subject drop and moved on to what was clearly bugging him most right now.

  I'd already finished the outline of my sketch and I tilted my head, glancing at Saint for a moment before continuing onto the details as the charcoal steadily stained my fingers black.

  "Yesterday, before...everything, I found my laptop an inch to the left of its usual position."

  "Holy shit, did you call the cops?" I gasped, chuckling loudly as he shot me a death glare.

  The music continued to play over the speakers and it slid from one piece to another with perfect synchronicity. Shit, I was starting to really enjoy this classical crap and I swear he’d figured it out because the songs that were playing were all ones I liked. They just seemed to fit me somehow, speaking to me or something. Fuck him.

  "Tatum and Monroe had been here alone before that happened," he went on, ignoring my teasing.

  "Oh?" I asked casually, hiding a smirk at the corner of my mouth with my thumb. Luckily Saint's gaze was firmly in the depths of his triple espresso, so he didn't notice.

  Maybe Monroe had the idea to eat her at the dining table before me.

  "I just get the feeling that there's something going on with the two of them that I'm missing," he muttered.

  "Mmm." I kept my eyes on the sketch, half tempted to tell him that Monroe had probably been fucking her brains out right over his laptop and advising him to check the keyboard in case any of the keys had been left a bit sticky. But as hilarious as that would have been, I knew it had nothing on what was going to happen when he caught them going at it. Which he would, because this was Saint Memphis and he already smelled a rat. I just hoped it would work out that I'd be there to see his eyes bug out of his head when he found our girl screaming beneath the headmaster, maybe panting ‘yes sir’ while he promised she wouldn't have to have detention if she just took her punishment like a good girl.

  "That's it? You have no further input?" Saint demanded as I started on some shading.

  "What do you want me to say, man? Anyone could have knocked your laptop out of its designated position and Nash is one of us now. You're not seriously suggesting him and Tatum are up to something because of that are you?"

  Saint released a frustrated breath and shrugged. "I just have an inkling, that's all. I'm missing something here and I know it. When I get to the bottom of it everything will be fine, I'm sure."

  "Well, dig deep, brother," I advised him, smirking to myself as he fell into contemplative silence which actually worked out quite well for me as it meant I could check I was getting the angles of his jaw right.

  At six fifteen he stood up suddenly and abandoned me where I sat, heading down to the gym to start his morning workout bang on time and no doubt reset the time warp that had made his routine fall to shit last night and make sure that he was in full control again for today. Nice and neat like nothing had ever happened.

  I could have headed back to bed, but instead I just stayed where I was, finishing up my sketch and letting my mind focus on the task. I drank the coffee Saint had made me to perk me up a bit more and found I didn’t mind the early morning so much for once.

  I didn't even notice when Tatum padded down the stairs to make breakfast, her fingers grasping the top of my sketch book the only warning I got of her arrival.

  I growled playfully as she tried to tug it from my grip and looked up to find her bare faced and pouting in my black band t-shirt.

  "Can I see?" she asked, her voice husky from lack of use and getting me all hot and bothered.

  "Anything for you, baby," I agreed with a mocking smile as I released the book and she flipped it around to get a look.

  "Kyan...shit, you’re crazy talented," she murmured as she took in the sketch of her and Saint standing out in the lake last night, the rain pouring down on them as they stared at each other with so much intensity that I swear I could still feel those emotions rolling off of them now.

  "It's yours if you want it, baby," I joked. "I'll even do you a good deal."

  "Does the price have something to do with what you've got hiding beneath your pants?" she asked, rolling her eyes like she already knew the answer to that.

  "Funnily enough, it does," I agreed, wondering if she might wanna suck me off before starting on breakfast, but the laugh spilling from her lips said not.

  Bet I could convince her though.

  "Is Saint okay this morning?" she as
ked, glancing towards the door that led down to the crypt where the sound of his music was much louder.

  "Yeah. He just did a full re-boot and is back to his usual fucked up robot self. No need for you to worry."

  She pursed her lips at me like she didn't like me making light of Saint going full Saint and almost destroying the world, but in hindsight I felt it was pretty funny really. No real harm done, everyone got some shit off of their chests, The Temple had a good clean, Saint's piano game was no doubt on top form once again, win win.

  "Seriously, baby, don't worry about it. Saint has to lose the plot every now and then so that he has the opportunity to take that stick out of his ass for a few hours and just vent his issues. If he didn't then I believe his head would legitimately explode one of these days. It's all good. I think in a fucked up way he actually likes going off his rocker too. It reminds him he isn't a robot after all. He's a big boy with real feelings and a cock that hungers for a taste of his girl just like any normal, red blooded man.

  "The way he is about the rules..." she began like she really did want to understand him better and I sighed as I took the sketchbook from her hands and laid it down on the coffee table, still open on the page with the sketch of her and Saint. That was the kind of Saint bait that might just start a war. He hated anything which documented him losing his shit and I was pretty certain that a sketch of him dripping wet and looking at our girl like the whole world began and ended with her would earn me another beating. But I was always up for that. And if he shredded my art for good measure then so be it. Worth it.

  "Saint's stories are his own to tell," I said as I got up and followed her over to the kitchenette where she began to prepare breakfast. "But I can say that rules are what he used to make sense of the world when things were taken from him that were out of his control. If you want an easy life with him then just do as he says. Though I personally feel that pushing him to test the rules isn't a bad thing. It helps him to see that things don't always have to be under his control even if he finds life easier when they are."

  "I guess it doesn't matter so long as he's okay," she mused as she got the pan ready to start cooking up some eggs. Luckily for Saint, there were still regular food deliveries being made to the school and Monroe had even started adding some of our specific requests to the orders to make sure that we could keep eating the things we liked. There were some shortages which were hard to get hold of, but money talked so Saint had just started paying the extra for any additional items he wanted and that meant his eggs and avocado were still on the menu.

  I moved up close behind Tatum as she worked, my fingers brushing up the lengths of her thighs and leaving black trails from the charcoal behind as she laughed and half heartedly swatted me away. But every time she did, I just growled and moved into her space more, my fingers moving to graze the inside of her thighs, sweep down her neck, slipping inside her shirt to seek out her nipple.

  It wasn't quite enough to stop her from preparing the food, but as her breaths grew heavier, I knew it was having the desired effect.

  Saint emerged from the crypt, shirtless and gleaming with sweat. His gaze slid over the black marks the charcoal had left all over Tatum's thighs and I smirked at him tauntingly as he growled with irritation.

  "Good morning," Tatum said, knocking my hands away again as she took a step towards Saint, but he only nodded before turning and heading for his room.

  As he went, I noticed the dark bruising over his ribs where I'd punched him last night and had to admit that that might have been a bit of an asshole move. But he'd called our girl a whore, so I wasn't sorry about it. And the fact that he hadn't called me out on it either said that he agreed that he'd deserved it too.

  Saint paused as he spotted the sketch on the coffee table, his jaw grinding as he picked it up and tore the page from the book.

  "Don't!" Tatum shouted as she raced away from me to save the sketch before Saint could hurl it into the fire and to my surprise, he actually paused.

  "You like this?" he asked, sneering down at the irrefutable proof that he was human while I chuckled like the asshole I was.

  "Yes. Please don't destroy it, Saint." Tatum held her hand out for the page and I waited to watch Saint throw it into the flames anyway like the piece of shit he was, but instead he just frowned at it and slowly handed it over.

  "Let's get a frame and hang it over the mantelpiece," I suggested, my grin widening as I waited for him to flip on me.

  "That seems like taking things a step too far," Saint replied dismissively, his gaze on Tatum instead of me. "But as you're so clearly in love with me, Kyan, maybe next time I'll pose for you with my cock out so that you can draw yourself something to jerk off over."

  He strode away without another word, hurrying up the stairs so that our little interaction didn't fuck up his schedule and I had to call out to him once I'd gotten over the surprise of him not freaking out.

  "Yes please, baby. But remember when I fuck you, I'll be the one on top!" I called after him.

  He flipped me off over the railing and then the heavy bang of his bathroom door closing stole him away from us.

  Tatum grinned triumphantly as she held her prized sketch between her fingers and I couldn't help but smirk too. There was something so damn intoxicating about making that girl smile.

  The sound of the lock turning in the door drew our attention and Monroe stepped into The Temple, shaking his head like a dog to displace the moisture in his hair.

  "How are things this morning?" he asked as Tatum moved back to start plating up and I hounded after her with determination.

  "All good," I reassured him. "Saint is back to his old chipper self, Blake still hasn't emerged from his cave and Tatum here was just asking if the two of us could make her come before Saint gets out of the shower."

  "What?" she squeaked, turning to glare at me. "I said no such thing."

  "It was implied," I said, grabbing her by the waist and hauling her around to face Monroe as he scowled at me.

  "Can you quit with the fucking comments?" he hissed, like he hated me constantly making innuendos about the two of them all the time, but I gave no shits.

  "Sure. You just need to get over here and put something in our girl real quick because Saint has a precise ten minutes in the shower and we've probably used up five of them already." I walked Tatum towards him as she squirmed in my hold and I couldn't help but laugh as she tried to punch me in the balls.

  "Kyan, stop. We can't take stupid risks, like-"

  I tugged her shirt up to reveal her bare pussy and pushed my hand between her thighs.

  Nash growled, Tatum whimpered and Saint shut off the fucking shower.

  "Damn," I said with a dramatic sigh, taking my hand back and rearranging my shirt around her thighs. "Next time, you guys need to get into position faster."

  "Asshole," Tatum chastised, shoving me away from her and Monroe shook his head and stalked away to take his spot at the table.

  Blake appeared, scrubbing sleep from his eyes and we helped Tatum plate up before bringing all of the food over to the table, just as Saint reappeared right on time to eat.

  All in all, I had to say that things were looking pretty good in Night Keeper world today.

  E verything about this day was perfect until my last class of the day when I was hit with the force of a freight train. There was a parcel waiting for me in reception and Mr Jacobs excused me to collect it. I knew in my gut what was waiting for me there and I was terrified to face it.

  I didn’t hear anything the Night Keepers spoke to me as I drifted out of my seat and headed for the door. I didn’t take in any of the walk as my feet guided me there. And now I couldn't hear the receptionist, Miss Schmidt, as she passed over the cardboard box and I felt the solid weight of it in my hands. Though it wasn't as heavy as I’d expected.

  She said something else, but I was already walking away, heading outside into the wind and drizzle which whirled around me. I clutched the box to my chest to k
eep it dry and found myself walking down the eastern path beside the lake. My chest was being brutally sliced into with a butcher's knife. Every breath I drew in hurt. Every step I took juddered through my body and made my soul rattle.

  I made it to the Willow Boathouse as the clouds started to part in the sky, so the drizzle ebbed away until just a cool wind remained. I headed inside, taking the twisting stairway up to the room above. I needed to just hide away and find a way to deal with this. It hurt so bad. Every time I thought I was starting to get used to his loss, something like this just split me open all over again. This day had been so bright, so good. And just like that, it had all gone to hell.

  My hands trembled around the box as I moved to the far corner by the window and slid down with my back to the wall, my knees to my chest as I stared out at the balcony and the choppy water of the lake beyond. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I held my dad’s ashes, wishing I could hold him for real. Wishing I could smell his familiar scent and watch him nudge his glasses up his nose as they slid down it. I wanted to see his crooked smile and hear his deep laugh. He had been my only constant my entire life, my best friend. And now he was reduced to ash in this box and it seemed everything he was and everything he could have been was compressed within it. His lasting dreams, regrets, his daily routines, his ambitions and hopes. All of it lived inside this small space, waiting to be discarded. And I was tasked with doing it.

  I didn't know how long I sat there, or how long I cried, but it was dark outside by the time I looked up again. I knew I had to deal with the messages and calls that were coming in repeatedly on my phone. I couldn’t put it off any longer. So I took it out, tapping on the latest text and finding it was from Kyan.

  Kyan:

  Where are you? We're losing our minds. Please answer me, baby.

  My heart tugged with guilt as I realised I'd been here for a couple of hours. The school day was over and the Night Keepers would no doubt think something awful had happened to me considering everything we'd been through lately.